I’ve been working on what’s described as a “database” story about local libraries, looking at their new digital resources and how people use them. (Public libraries aren’t just about books any more — or even books and DVDs.) It’s fascinating stuff, and my piece will probably run sometime this summer.

In the meantime, my editor was wondering what the most checked-out book in the library was.

Well, the results are in, at least for January 2013. These are the volumes most checked out from the New Hanover library:

“Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn (checked out 133 times)

“A Wanted Man” by Lee Child (127 checkouts)

“The Racketeer” by John Grisham (113 checkouts)

“NYPD Red” by James Patterson and Marshall Karp (105 checkouts)

“Private London” by James Patterson and Mark Pearson (65 checkouts)

“The Black Box” by Michael Connelly (62 checkouts)

“The Forgotten” by David Baldacci (58 checkouts)

“Mad River” by John Sandford (58 checkouts)

“Notorious Nineteen” by Janet Evanovich (55 checkouts)

“The Last Man” by Vince Flynn (55 checkouts)

“Zoo” by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (52 checkouts)

“The Bone Bed” by Patricia Cornwell (51 checkouts)

Librarian Margaret Miles, who crunches many of the system’s numbers, notes that these figures are for only traditional print copies and doesn’t include large-print titles, audiobooks or e-books, Miles also noted that fiction and non-fiction titles circulate differently; novels go out a lot during their first year, while non-fiction books tend to be hardy perennials.

It appears the most-checked-out non-fiction title of 2012 was “Unbroken” by Lauren Hillenbrand, which went out more than 350 times — and that’s more than a year after it first came out in hardcover.

A couple of observations: (1. If you want to sel a lot of books, write a thriller. (2. James Patterson seems to have learned the secret of Alexandre Dumas the elder, who churned out novels by the dozen with the aid of collaborators. As one wag put it, “no one has ever read the whole of Dumas, not even himself.”

His last novel, “The Knight of Sainte-Hermine” was unfinished at his death; a Dumas scholar, Claude Schopp, found a near-c0mplete newspaper serial version, edited it and published it in 2005 as “The Last Cavalier.” It became a best-seller in France, nearly 135 years after Dumas’ death. Now, let’s see James Patterson top that.

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About This Blog

This is an emporium for all things literary: occasional book reviews, local book news, items about authors (mostly from the Cape Fear area but occasional visitors) and miscellaneous rants.

The usual author is Ben Steelman, feature writer and book columnist for the Star-News. He’s that shaggy, slightly smelly character you spot lurking in the back aisles of your local bookstore. Physically, he has more than a passing resemblance to Ignatius J. Reilly, hero of John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” — some observers have noted other parallels as well.